


Raise my hands, Paint my spirit gold

by voices_in_my_head



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Drake Lives, FIx It, Season 2 finale AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 05:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10690230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voices_in_my_head/pseuds/voices_in_my_head
Summary: "Olivia Moore was not a quitter and she was back."AU where the Max Rager cure for Drake works and everyone gets turned back to human.





	Raise my hands, Paint my spirit gold

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much what the summary says. Finale still went much the same, except they found Drake as human and Vivian never happened, cuz I don't know how to deal with that :p
> 
> Drake is bae and deserved better.

It didn’t happen from night to day. Drake got the cure and it worked and Ravi used his blood to recreate since the police confiscated everything in Max Rager’s laboratories. Probably from the best, anyway, nothing from there should be trusted.

Major had, of course, been more than ready to take the cure once Ravi recreated it. And Ravi, just as expected, had forbidden it until he tested on zombie rats. It worked. The rats all went back to normal and Drake continued to be human.

Not that Liv spent much time with him. She had just been so busy trying to make the story of Max Rager’s users going crazy at a party, acting like zombies but not actually being ones, no sir, and work and… well, pretty much trying very hard not to get her hopes up again. Because if the cure didn’t work then her and Drake would just be Majorliv.2 since they’d be different species and everyone knew how that had worked out.

So Liv kept away from Drake and from Major and pretended that her heart wasn’t trying to run away from her body every time Ravi looked at her, expecting the worst kind of news.

But after a couple months Ravi finally told them that so far everything was looking good. He told Liv and Major that he still couldn’t be 100% sure, that he might never be, but for now… He felt as secure as he could that if they took this new cure they’d be back to their normal self.

They called Blaine to be their first guinea pig. He wasn’t thrilled but it wasn’t like was enjoying being memoryless. He’d been kicked out of Shady Plots by Don E and Mr. Boss was still looking for him.

Liv, Major, Ravi, Peyton and even Clive didn’t take his eyes from him after Ravi injected him with the cure.

It was like her heart had stopped. Well, even more. One second Blaine was looking at them the way he’d looked at them for the past months; confused, though slightly fond, like he considered them friends, or at least, didn’t look at them as disposable and the second he blinked and he recognized all their shared history.

“Oh,” he said and he pressed his lips together and Liv had the strangest urge to hug him. Ugh, being on the brain of a mom of eight was not the most fun. She didn’t hug him but she did ask in a softer voice than she’d ever used with him before, “how are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Blaine stood up quickly and sent them all a smirk. “Dainty. Good as new. And not to worry doc, no urges to eat brains. Well, then, I think I’ll be off. Thanks for all your hard work and I guess our paths will stop crossing so often.”

He was still smirking as he swaggered out of the morgue but Liv could see his shoulders hunch. Again, she stopped herself from going after him to hug and tell him sweet comforting words. Whatever Blaine’s issues were, he was going to have to deal with them alone.

“Me next,” Major immediately piped out and rolled his sleeve up as he sat in the metal operating table that Blaine had just vacated.

Ravi frowned and Liv could see him trying to decide on whether he was as willing to put his best friend through an experimental drug as he’d been to the guy who’d murdered countless people and of course, slept with his maybe-girlfriend.

Liv wanted to stop Major but what she said instead was, “do it.” Just like Blaine had to deal with his life choices, so did all of them. Major had a right to the cure

Ravi sighed and went to get a second vial. The fridge was full of them. There were still plenty of people there that needed it. Liv, Clive and Major had let all the zombies confined in Max Rager secret laborites out and they’d let them all go back to their lives, where they now expected a cure.

Major had already been cleared of all charges but now everyone knew he was innocent since the official story was that Max Rager had been kidnapping people to experiment drugs on them. Why rich people? Well, because Vaughn Du Clark had been the most egocentric man this side of the Pacific and he hadn’t wanted anyone rich enough to be competition around. Or maybe just because he was allergic to poor people. The jury was metaphorically still out on that once since with Vaughn Du Clark dead as well as most of his employees there really hadn’t been much to do except go with the story Clive and Liv had given everyone.

Ravi injected Major and once again all their breaths were held. Major took a deep breath and then he smiled.

“I’m human again.”

Everyone smiled and Peyton started clapping and then hugged Ravi and congratulated him on his success.

“It’s your turn next, Liv,” Major said with a big smile and Liv smiled back, but it didn’t feel real and everyone in this room, who knew her so well, could see it. Still, no one said anything, just took it for nerves, and in a way, it was.

Of course Liv wanted to go back to being human. She didn’t want to eat brains anymore, she wanted to finally find a good explanation for Ethan and their mother… But at the same time she’d done some good for over a year. Some real good. She’d found murderers, she’d given lots of people peace. She took a deep breath and looked at Clive, who was looking at her like he knew what she was thinking. He nodded and Liv smiled. He’d keep up the good work with or without her.

“Let’s do this,” Ravi smiled and went to get the third vial of the day.

Liv smiled at the others, “can you guys even remember me as brunette?”

Peyton laughed, and it was a bit nervous, but not as much as before Blaine and Major had taken the cure. It had worked. Maybe it wasn’t permanent, but it had worked, and it was time for them all to go back to how they used to be. Liv had done some good, that was true, but this wasn’t a way to live. She hadn’t been herself in over a year. She missed some of her neurotics, she missed not being afraid of going without food for a few days because she might turn deadly and start killing everyone around her.

“Let’s do this,” she repeated as Ravi came back. He smiled at her and pulled her sleeve up. He went through the whole shebang of wrapping a tie around her arm and cleaning a patch of skin. He looked serious as he injected her.

Liv didn’t look at the needle. She looked at her friends, instead. The ones that had been with her for years, that had been there through the human and zombie times and the ones who’d only known her as a zombie, who had accepted her as such. If that wasn’t the making of great friends, great people, she didn’t know what it was.

“Liv…” Peyton whispered and then there were tears in her eyes and for a second Liv thought it hadn’t worked, that she would be like this forever, that she had been a zombie for too long, but then she felt her heart beat like it hadn’t beat in so long. It was strong. Liv smiled and took a hand to her chest, where she felt it beat to a rhythm.

She got up and hugged Peyton. The urge had been all her, no more housewife in her brain, no more urge to tell Ravi that it was more than time to make Peyton an honest woman out of her. Liv started crying and then Ravi hugged both of them and then Major.

“Seriously, man? You’re just gonna stand there and look at us? What, you too manly for a group hug?” Ravi questioned Clive and Liv couldn’t see him roll his eyes, but she was pretty sure he did it. Still, he joined their group hug and Liv felt… alive. Happy. Whole.

The tears didn’t stop for a long time. When they finally untangled and she started wiping them away with her fingers she could see Peyton crying just as heartfeltly, Ravi wiping his nose and Major with a teary smile. Clive wasn’t crying but he looked at her softly.

Liv hugged him again, “thank you. For everything. For giving me a chance. For believing in me. For being my friend.”

Clive hugged her tightly, “meeting you was one of the craziest moments of my life, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

“Not even that time I was on superhero brain?”

“Vigilante, Liv. Fog was a vigilante, not a superhero. They’re not real.”

“How dare you,” Ravi said, “Batman is very much real.”

Clive untangled himself from her. “Batman is the epitome of vigilantes. He’s not a superhero. He doesn’t even have anything super about him!”

Liv left them to their arguing, since of course Ravi could never let a statement like that stand and went to Peyton and Major.

“I’m definitely not gonna miss having to dye my hair,” Major told them, which made Liv grab a lock of her own hair. It was brown. She smiled at it.

“I hope I can still handle spicy food. I got really used to it,” she told them.

They were silent after that, with Ravi and Clive now arguing on whether a superhero became one because of who he was or because of his actions.

“I should make a few calls. Tell people that the cure is ready,” Major said.

Liv almost told him to wait a few days but she knew that those people deserved it. Contrary to her, they hadn’t been helping to solve murders. They’d been forced to deal with other people’s experiences and memories, with few bright sides to them. So she nodded at Major, who touched her shoulder as he left for Ravi’s office.

“So, are you finally going to call Drake?” Peyton asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Liv told her honestly. What if they’d only worked because they had both been zombies at the same time? Was there still some connection there? Would he like her without the unnatural mood changes?

Peyton grabbed her shoulders. “I can feel the old Liv coming back. I know you’re doubting your time with him but don’t. You liked him and he liked you, I’m sure. The least you owe both of you is a conversation. Remember, if you don’t try, nothing new ever happens to you.”

Liv took a deep breath and nodded. “Thanks, Peyton. For everything.”

“Don’t,” Peyton told her in a wavering voice, moving one of her hands from Liv’s shoulders to wipe away the new tears forming on her eyes. “I really don’t want to cry again. This mascara is good, but not that good. You don’t need to thank me, ever. I’m the one who’s sorry I wasn’t there the whole time.”

“You came back, you know that’s what matters to me. I didn’t blame you for leaving, ever.”

“I know, I just…” Peyton breathed deeply, “let’s just agree that we’re even. I don’t apologize and you don’t thank me.”

Liv nodded strongly. “Seems like a deal, sister.”

Peyton shook her head, “good to see you’re still a weirdo.”

Liv rolled her eyes, “so, what’s the deal with Ravi?”

.

Liv kept getting glances of her brown hair on windows and car mirrors on her way to the little diner she and Drake had agreed to meet at. She had to admit her current hairstyle definitely looked better in white than brown and she thought about dying it back to white for a few moments before she berated herself. She didn’t want to go back to being a zombie, she just… It felt weird. Now there was only old dear Olivia Moore inside her heard. Well, mostly. She could still feel remains. Not big ones; she understood science about as much as she had during high school, she couldn’t play the drums, she didn’t want to write erotica, but there was still something in there. Something that sometimes only thought about the positive outcomes, about all the exits in a particular building… It was Liv but it wan’t old Liv. It was a new Liv.

It wasn’t a bad thing, Liv reminded herself. She had been a freaking zombie! Of course she wouldn’t be completely back to how she used to be.

She thought back about leaving the morgue and getting stopped by Major for a chat. She’d already texted Drake about meeting up.

“Hey, Liv, I just… I’m sorry about how things went. That I didn’t tell you about what Vaughn Du Clark had me do. But you know why I did it, don’t you?”

“Yes, exactly why I did it to you. So, let’s just agree to be even, yeah?” She’d asked with a smile. She felt tired about going over and over again events that had already happened and that wouldn’t change no matter how much they talked things over. She didn’t blame Major for anything, just as she hoped that he had gotten over her turning him into a zombie to save his life.

Major had smiled, “yeah, let’s just go back to how things were.” There was a pause, “not… not exactly how things were. I mean, I… There’s something between us that’s never going to go away, Liv, and I don’t want it to, but…”

“It’s like we’ve gotten on different trains, isn’t it? We keep waving at each other but every time one of us gets out of one train to go into the other, then the other of us is gone.”

“God, I did not miss your weird metaphors,” Major had told her but she had seen the relaxed look on him, like it hadn’t been there since she’d been turned into a zombie.

“You’re right, what we had, it’s never going to go away completely. But… I think that chapter is over. It doesn’t mean that there can’t be a new one, though. A friendship one, I mean.”

Major had smiled again, “I’d like that, Liv.”

Liv smiled at him and Major started walking away. She turned back to her phone as it pinged when Major called her name, “I hope things work out with Drake.”

“Thanks,” Liv said and replied to his text with a smile.

So that had been it. It had hurt to close that chapter, remembering how Old Liv had thought that Major was the love of her life, wondering if he still was but… She had to move on. Things simply weren’t working out between them right then and Drake… he really had meant something to her.

Peyton was right. She had to try new things and she couldn’t simply give up, not without giving it a shot. Olivia Moore was not a quitter and she was back.

Liv entered the diner with a smile and immediately saw Drake at one of the farthest tables. Not like he was a hard man to catch.

He looked more tanned than she’d ever seen him before, and his hair looked more natural, but it was still full of gel. Some things apparently didn’t change, zombie DNA or not.

Drake smiled at her as she walked towards the table, having noticed her the second she walked in, with his eyes trained on the entrance of the diner.

“Hey,” she smiled back, sitting down.

“You look… great. Not that you didn’t look great with the white hair. You rocked that like no other zombie I ever met.”

“Not even Blaine? I mean, I think he even made it work as a human,” she said in a joking tone, not really thinking too much on her words, just wanting a light environment around them.

Drake shrugged, “blond guys aren’t really my type.”

Liv raised an eyebrow, “what about brunette guys?”

Drake shrugged again, “not really my type either but hey, you never know.”

She smiled and a woman around forty came by their table.

“What can I get you?”

“A burger, please. And a chocolate milkshake.”

“The same for me,” Drake told the woman, who left after noting their requests down.

“So… the cure works.”

“Yes, thanks to you.”

Drake shrugged, “I didn’t do anything. Just stood still as Ravi took some of my blood. He’s the man of the hour.”

Liv couldn’t help herself but to put a hand on top of one of his, where it was laying on the table. “I know what you did. Baracus told me. You… you volunteered for the cure, even though everyone who’d been taken before had never come back, or had come back as a complete zombie.”

“Hey,” Drake called her, using his free hand to wipe her tears away. “I’m not dead. It worked.”

“But you didn’t know it would!” Liv said in a slightly loud voice. Drake drew his hand away, but she quickly grabbed it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… I was just so scared. First I was angry, I thought you were just ghosting me, that you were just a regular thug for Mr. Boss, that I’d just been… I don’t know, the easy option around, being a zombie-“

“Liv-“ Drake tried to stop her, holding her hand with more strength. She shook her head.

“Please just let me finish. I was angry, and then I was just so, so scared. I went to your mom and I found out you were an undercover cop and I felt so ashamed of myself, because part of me had always doubted you, and it turns out you were this amazing and selfless guy.”

“Liv, seriously, that isn’t all me. I have done bad stuff. Just because I had permission from the law, it doesn’t mean I didn’t do those things or that they weren’t bad.”

“I know. I understand. But I still… I still respect you a lot.”

“Respect? Is that all you feel for me?” Drake asked, not taking his eyes off her.

Liv took a deep breath but before she could reply the same woman brought her milkshakes.

“Enjoy. Your burgers will be here shortly,” Liv and Drake nodded and she left.

“I… I like you. A lot. I wasn’t sure how I felt but… I was really scared, Drake. Like I haven’t been in a long time. I… I don’t have that many people around me. I don’t open myself that easily.”

“I don’t either. You… you were never easy. Not even in sex obsessed librarian brain. You were… you saved my life, even though we’d never met before. You knew nothing about me and you were still willing to help me, to get to know me. That takes courage, Liv. That’s what first made me like you. You say you don’t have many people around you, but the ones you do, I know they’re loyal, and they’d never let anything happen to you. I’d never let anything happen to you. Even if… even if you don’t want to date anymore, I’d like to be a part of your life.”

“I’d like that. And we can… we can date. Slowly. I have to get used to being human again. I can go back to being a doctor. Or I can stay in the morgue with Ravi, though I don’t think I’ll be of much help to Clive anymore. I guess I could join the Police Academy.”

Drake frowned at that, making his thoughts on the idea obvious.

Liv laughed, “I’m not actually planning on doing that. Nothing wrong with being a cop, of course, but… I think the morgue is a good place for me right now. Later… who knows.”

Drake nodded, “I’m glad to hear that. I’m currently on leave,” he rolled his eyes, “gotta be checked by a shrink and so on. Guess that’s what happens when you’re kidnapped by a rich guy with a God complex. Christ, that Du Clark was insane on a whole new level and I’ve known Mr. Boss for years.”

Liv nodded but shook her thoughts from that man and everything he’d done. The experiences, the zombies, the killings, the kidnappings… even his own daughter, who’d ended up with two bullets to the brain after helping other zombies in finishing him off.

“I have some free days off work, you know. Maybe we could go away for a few days.”

Drake smiled, “I’d like that. Only…”

“Your mom can come too. I know she must not want you out of her sight for even a second.”

Drake laughed, “I’m sure that if she hadn’t started hysterically crying as I knocked at her door, she would have slapped me.” The smile fell, “I never wanted to hurt her. Or you. I’m sorry I scared you and that I wasn’t honest from the beginning. As you can imagine, being undercover and in a relationship, doesn’t really get you a gold star.”

“It’s okay.”

Drake nodded, “anyway, after I get back to work, I’m stopping undercover work for a while. Mr. Boss knows I got kidnapped but he’s not really happy with me and my mom… she needs me.”

“You’re a great man, Drake Holloway. I’m glad I saved you.”

“Me too,” he told her and they held hands and smiled stupidly at each other until the burgers arrived. Then it was all hands-on deck. God, how she’d missed normal food.

 


End file.
